What are the standard hours of work?

Standard hours of work are 40 hours a week and 8 hours a day. Employees are entitled to their regular wage rate for work during these hours. Employees must be paid at the overtime wage rate if they work more than the standard hours.

What is the overtime wage rate?

What are deemed to be hours of work when calculating overtime?

Employees whose hours of work are greater than 8 hours a day and 40 hours a week are entitled to overtime wages of 1 ½ times their regular wage rate. General holidays, vacation leave, and paid sick time are all deemed to be hours of work for the purpose of calculating overtime.

For employees performing landscaping work for a landscaping business, the standard hours are varied from April 15 to November 30 each year. During that period, the standard hours are 10 hours a day, 50 hours a week and 2,080 hours a year.

What is a landscaping business?

Landscaping businesses involve construction or maintenance of a landscape, including lawn cutting, fertilizing, applying sod and controlling weeds. They do not include the maintenance or cleaning of parking lots or snow removal, or working with inventory or customers at a gardening/landscaping retail outlet.

What if the banked time is not taken?

Do salaried employees receive overtime?

Yes. Employees who are paid by salary are entitled to overtime. An hourly wage can be calculated to determine the overtime pay per hour.

For example: an employee who earns a salary of $450 per week and is expected to work a 40-hour week is paid $11.25 per hour. Overtime is paid at 1 ½ times the regular wage rate. Using this example, the employee would earn $16.87 per hour for overtime.

Can a salary include some overtime?

Yes. Employers and employees can agree on a salary that includes a specific amount of overtime. Agreements should be made before any overtime is worked and must clearly identify wages for working more than the standard hours. Clearly written agreements can save future disagreements.

For example: An employee earns a salary of $700 per week and is expected to work a 50-hour week. This agreement means the employee is working 40 regular hours and 10 hours of overtime each week as part of the salary. To calculate an hourly wage rate for the salary, the overtime hours are first converted to standard (regular) hours by multiplying them by 1 ½.

Do employees who are paid by commission receive overtime?

Yes. Employees who are paid by an incentive plan, such as commission are still entitled to receive overtime pay. Employees earning incentive pay are entitled to at least minimum wage and the correct overtime pay for any overtime hours worked.

Employees who are paid on an incentive plan are entitled to overtime based on their average hourly wage, instead of minimum wage. See the Incentive-Based Overtime page for more information.

For more information contact Employment Standards:

This is a general overview and the information used is subject to change. For detailed information, please refer to current legislation including The Employment Standards Code, The Construction Industry Wages Act , The Worker Recruitment and Protection Act, or contact Employment Standards.